


The One You Cannot Live Without

by merriman



Category: Westing Game - Ellen Raskin
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Relationship Off Screen, Runaway Bride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 21:24:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20513711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/pseuds/merriman
Summary: Violet Westing is not happy. Violet Westing does not want to marry the man her mother has picked out. Good thing she has her Aunt Sybil to go to for advice."We were best friends, almost like sisters," -Sybil Pulaski





	The One You Cannot Live Without

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertVixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/gifts).

> I couldn't decide which direction to go in - Sybil was found, or Violet lives - so you get two stories!

The dress fittings weren't precisely the worst part of the wedding planning process, Violet thought. They weren't her favorite part - nothing was, really - but they weren't the worst. Her fiance insisted on driving her every time, but the dressmaker had put her foot down about him coming to the fitting area with them. She'd tsked and shaken her head and her husband had taken Stephen aside to talk about tuxedos and groomsmen and whatever else the groom needed to decide on before the wedding. In the back, standing on a raised platform, it was just Violet and the dressmaker.

"Oh my dear," the dressmaker, Mrs. Baumbach, said as she stood up. "You're going to be such a lovely bride!"

Violet turned carefully and looked in the mirror. The dress was very nice, she couldn't deny that. It was precisely the dress she would have wanted to wear for her wedding. Just not this wedding. Not this groom.

"Mrs. Baumbach," Violet said softly, taking care not to let her voice carry past the heavy curtains that draped over the entrance to the fitting area. "Do you get many brides with cold feet?"

Mrs. Baumbach paused, pins still in her mouth as she adjusted a piece of lace at Violet's shoulder. 

"Oh, goodness," she said, carefully putting the pins back into the pincushion on her wrist. "Yes, I suppose I have had a few. Why, dear? Are you feeling nervous? Most brides do. Grooms too, I promise."

Mrs. Baumbach patted Violet's shoulder and went back to pinning the lace. Violet, for her part, stared into the mirror in front of her, focusing on the sure, quick movements of Mrs. Baumbach's hands. It was much better than focusing on herself, that was to be certain.

* * *

"The dress is going to be ready next week," Violet said. "Thank you." She took a cup of tea from her aunt and set it on the low table in front of her. Of course, Sybil wasn't actually her aunt, but she and Violet's mother had been friends their whole lives. The funny part was, as far as Violet could tell, they weren't at all alike. Where Violet's mother was quiet and calm and stern, Aunt Sybil was brash and outspoken and didn't mind if Violet put her elbows on the table or took an extra cookie from the tin. Sybil was who she went to when she needed a shoulder to cry on or someone to talk to when she just couldn't bear it in that cold, empty house anymore. 

Sybil sat down next to Violet on the couch and sipped her own tea, then winced when it scalded her mouth. 

"Next week, hmm?" she said as she set her tea on the table. "Coming down to it, Vi," she said. "How are you doing?"

Violet hesitated. She'd always told Aunt Sybil her worries and fears before, but this whole engagement, from start to finish, she'd kept it bottled up. It was so important to her mother and how could she defy her? How could Violet say no? She couldn't even stand up to her mother enough to insist on playing with Josie, the housekeeper's daughter, when they'd been girls. 

Sybil sighed and wrapped an arm around Violet's shoulders, bringing her in for a hug. Sybil had a hug that Violet had once thought could cure all the ills of the world. She knew better now, of course, but right then, right there, it was hard not to think that maybe, just maybe, Sybil could figure a way to fix this.

"I don't love him," Violet whispered into her aunt's shoulder. "I don't think I _can_ love him. There's just… something. I get this shuddering feeling when I think about the future."

Neither of them spoke for a while after that. Violet realized she'd started crying and Aunt Sybil was just holding her and rocking her and murmuring indistinctly to comfort her. Eventually, Violet sat back and took a handkerchief from her handbag and dabbed at her eyes while Sybil picked up her tea again and sighed.

"Violet, sweetheart, if you're that worried, then it's not right to get married to the man."

Violet blew her nose. Aunt Sybil wasn't one to chide her about unladylike behavior, thank goodness. 

"Now, Violet," Sybil continued. "I've been biting my tongue for a year now, but do you want my honest opinion of the situation?"

Of course she did. Violet had been assuming Aunt Sybil was fine with it all, because Aunt Sybil wasn't one to bite her tongue. She'd always been free with her opinions - leading, at times, to some impressive arguments between her and Violet's mother, arguments Violet was certain she wasn't supposed to have heard. If Aunt Sybil wasn't saying anything, then there wasn't anything to be said. Except there was. There had been.

"Yes, please. You know I trust you," Violet told her.

Sybil set down her teacup and patted Violet's hand. "I've never really liked that man. I tried to tell your mother! I've got a bad feeling about that Steve Bolling, I told her. And I've got a good instinct for this sort of thing. Did I ever tell you about the man I almost married? I returned the ring and walked away and now he's doing time for holding up a liquor store. Trust your gut, Vi. It's telling you what it's telling me."

There it was, out in the open. Violet thought about what her aunt had just said, then shook her head. It was good to know what Aunt Sybil thought, but what could be done about it? How could she walk away now? The wedding was in less than two weeks. 

"I know what you're thinking," Sybil was saying. "You're thinking how can you not marry him now? The wedding is happening soon. The catering is planned and paid for, the dress is almost finished, the invitations have gone out and RSVPs have come back. Your mother will be upset, ashamed. Your father will… Well, I don't know what your father will do. I've always found the man inscrutable. But your mother will get over it, I promise. And your father can afford it. Heck, he'll probably turn the thing into a big Fourth of July party, even though it's only June."

Violet's mind was racing. She'd have to move out, somehow. There was no way she could live in that house after disappointing her mother like that. And what if her mother insisted? What if she wore her down? She was good at that. It was how she'd gotten Violet to break things off with her boyfriend and start seeing Stephen in the first place.

"Aunt Sybil," Violet said, folding her handkerchief and composing herself. "Would you mind terribly if I used your telephone?"

"What for, sweetheart?" Sybil asked.

"I'm going to call George," Violet told her. "I do hope he forgives me."

Sybil's grin lit up the living room. "Vi, sweetie, that boy would forgive anything you asked. I always liked him. Nice young man, hard worker."

"I know. But… do you think he'd say yes if I asked him to elope?"

* * *

True to what they'd thought, Berthe and Sam were livid. Berthe more than Sam, which Sybil wasn't surprised by. Sam had all the power and prestige he could want, after all, and while Berthe muttered to herself about Violet's ungratefulness and timing and the shame of it all, Sybil could see some wheels start to turn in Sam's head. She'd always found him hard to read, but she knew enough to figure when he had some plan forming.

Violet and George, newly married at city hall with Sybil and George's sister to witness, were off on a honeymoon to Greece. Sybil figured she wasn't going any time soon, so she'd gifted the happy couple the money she'd set aside for a trip in the hazy someday of the future. Then she'd gotten a taxi up to the Westing house to break the news. Just like she'd promised Violet.


End file.
